Sunday, December 19, 2010

Saturday, December 04, 2010

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming. - Goethe

Friday, November 26, 2010

Jung treated modern man with compassion, realizing that "he" was overstrained from his boundless activities. According to Jung, he suffers from the disease of knowing everything; there is nothing he cannot pigeonhole. He is "extraverted as hell" and shows a "remarkable lack of introspection". He thinks that the gods and demons have disappeared from Nature and does not notice that they keep him on the run; hence, his restlessness and need for alcohol and tranquilizers. Modern man believes that he can do as he pleases and is perturbed that inexplicable anxieties plague him. True to his rationalistic bias, he has tried all the usual remedies - diets, exercise programs, studying inspirational literature - and only reluctantly admits that he can't seem to find a way to live a meaningful life.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

"The knowledge and vision of things as they really are is the supporting condition for disenchantment": As the yogin contemplates the rise and fall of the five aggregates, his attention becomes riveted to the final phase of the process, their dissolution and passing away. This insight into the instability of the aggregates at the same time reveals their basic unreliability. Far from being the ground of satisfaction we unreflectively take them to be, conditioned things are seen to be fraught with peril when adhered to with craving and wrong views. The growing realization of this fundamental insecurity brings a marked transformation in the mind's orientation towards conditioned existence. Whereas previously the mind was drawn to the world by the lure of promised gratification, now, with the exposure of the underlying danger, it draws away in the direction of a disengagement. This inward turning away from the procession of formations is called nibbida. Though some times translated "disgust" or "aversion," the term suggests, not emotional repugnance, but a conscious act of detachment resulting from a profound noetic discovery. Nibbida signifies in short, the serene, dignified withdrawal from phenomena which supervenes when the illusion of their permanence, pleasure, and selfhood has been shattered by the light of correct knowledge and vision of things as they are. The commentaries explain nibbida as powerful insight (balava vipassana), an explanation consonant with the word's literal meaning of "finding out." It indicates the sequel to the discoveries unveiled by that contemplative process, the mind's appropriate response to the realizations thrust upon it by the growing experiences of insight. Buddhaghosa compares it to the revulsion a man would feel who, having grabbed bold of a snake in the belief it was a fish, would look at it closely and suddenly realize he was holding a snake.

As our rendering implies, disenchantment marks the dissipation of an "enchantment" or fascination with the kaleidoscopic pleasures of conditioned existence, whether in the form of sense enjoyments, emotions, or ideas. This fascination, resting upon the distorted apprehension of things as permanent, pleasurable, and self, is maintained at a deep unverbalized level by the hope of finding self identity in the conditioned. As the enchanted mind presses forward seeking explicit confirmation of the innate sense of selfhood, everything encountered is evaluated in terms of the notions "mine," "I," and "my self," the principal appropriative and identificatory devices with which the inherent sense of personal selfhood works. These three notions, imputed to phenomena on account of ignorance, are in actuality conceptual fabrications woven by craving, conceit, and speculation, respectively. The insight into impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness cuts the ground out from underneath this threefold fabrication, reversing the mode in which phenomena can be viewed. Whereas before the development of insight the aggregates were regarded as being "mine," "I," and "self," now, when illuminated with the light of insight knowledge, they are seen in the opposite way as "not-mine," "not I," and "not self." Since the fascination with phenomenal existence is sustained by the assumption of underlying selfhood, the dispelling of this illusion through the penetration of the three marks brings about a de-identification with the aggregates and an end to their spell of enchantment. In place of the fascination and attraction a profound experience of estrangement sets in, engendered by the perception of selfessness in all conditioned being. The suttas present this sequence thus:

Material form, monks, is impermanent, suffering, and non-self. Feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness are impermanent, suffering, and not-self. What is impermanent, suffering and non-self, that should be seen with correct wisdom as it really is: "This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self." So seeing, the instructed noble disciple becomes disenchanted with material form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with mental formations, and disenchanted with consciousness.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The solution to this seeming paradox lies in the distinction between two kinds of freedom — between freedom as license and freedom as spiritual autonomy. Contemporary man, for the most part, identifies freedom with license. For him, freedom means the license to pursue undisturbed his impulses, passions and whims. To be free, he believes, he must be at liberty to do whatever he wants, to say whatever he wants and to think whatever he wants. Every restriction laid upon this license he sees as an encroachment upon his freedom; hence a practical regimen calling for restraint of deed, word, and thought, for discipline and self-control, strikes him as a form of bondage. But the freedom spoken of in the Buddha's Teaching is not the same as license. The freedom to which the Buddha points is spiritual freedom — an inward autonomy of the mind which follows upon the destruction of the defilements, manifests itself in an emancipation from the mold of impulsive and compulsive patterns of behavior, and culminates in final deliverance from samsara, the round of repeated birth and death.

In contrast to license, spiritual freedom cannot be acquired by external means. It can only be attained inwardly, through a course of training requiring the renunciation of passion and impulse in the interest of a higher end. The spiritual autonomy that emerges from this struggle is the ultimate triumph over all confinement and self-limitation; but the victory can never be achieved without conforming to the requirements of the contest — requirements that include restraint, control, discipline and, as the final price, the surrender of self-assertive desire.

Spiritual freedom, as the opposite of this condition of bondage, must therefore mean freedom from lust, hatred, and delusion. When lust, hatred, and delusion are abandoned in a man, cut off at the root so that they no longer remain even in latent form, then a man finds for himself a seat of autonomy from which he can never be dethroned, a position of mastery from which he can never be shaken. Even though he be a mendicant gathering his alms from house to house, he is still a king; even though he be locked behind bars of steel, he is inwardly free. He is now sovereign over his own mind, and as such over the whole universe; for nothing in the universe can take from him that deliverance of heart which is his inalienable possession. He dwells in the world among the things of the world, yet stands in perfect poise above the world's ebb and flow. If pleasant objects come within range of his perception he does not yearn for them, if painful objects come into range he does not recoil from them. He looks upon both with equanimity and notes their rise and fall. Toward the pairs of opposites which keep the world in rotation he is without concern, the cycle of attraction and repulsion he has broken at its base. A lump of gold and a lump of clay are to his eyes the same; praise and scorn are to his ears empty sounds. He abides in the freedom he has won through long and disciplined effort. He is free from suffering, for with the defilements uprooted no more can sorrow or grief fall upon his heart; there remains only that perfect bliss unsullied by any trace of craving.

In its fullness, the freedom to which the Buddha points as the goal of His Teaching can only be enjoyed by him who has made the realization of the goal a matter of his own living experience. But just as salt lends its taste to whatever food it is used to season, so does the taste of freedom pervade the entire range of the Doctrine and Discipline proclaimed by the Buddha, its beginning, its middle, and its end. Whatever our degree of progress may be in the practice of the Dhamma, to that extent may the taste of freedom be enjoyed. It must always be borne in mind, however, that true freedom — the inward autonomy of the mind — does not descend as a gift of grace. It can only be won by the practice of the path to freedom, the Noble Eightfold Path.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

A 2007 study called "Mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference" by Norman Farb at the University of Toronto, along with six other scientists, broke new ground in our understanding of mindfulness from a neuroscience perspective.

Farb and his colleagues worked out a way to study how human beings experience their own moment-to-moment experience. They discovered that people have two distinct ways of interacting with the world, using two different sets of networks. One network for experiencing your experience involves what is called the "default network", which includes regions of the medial prefrontal cortex, along with memory regions such as the hippocampus. This network is called default because it becomes active when not much else is happening, and you think about yourself. If you are sitting on the edge of a jetty in summer, a nice breeze blowing in your hair and a cold beer in your hand, instead of taking in the beautiful day you might find yourself thinking about what to cook for dinner tonight, and whether you will make a mess of the meal to the amusement of your partner. This is your default network in action. It's the network involved in planning, daydreaming and ruminating.

This default network also become active when you think about yourself or other people, it holds together a "narrative". A narrative is a story line with characters interacting with each other over time. The brain holds vast stores of information about your own and other people's history. When the default network is active, you are thinking about your history and future and all the people you know, including yourself, and how this giant tapestry of information weaves together. In this way, in the Farb study they like to call the default network the ‘narrative' circuitry. (I like the ‘narrative circuit' term for every-day usage as it's easier to remember and a bit more elegant than ‘default' when talking about mindfulness.)

In adverse situations,
even though you are surrounded by needles and medicines that will help you through the trials,
you are unaware of them.
In favourable circumstances,
all around you are swords and halberds which will whittle away your flesh and bones,
you do not know about them.

Those who grow up in a setting of riches and splendour are driven by greed like a raging fire.
Their power and influence blaze furiously everywhere.
If they cannot cultivate feelings that are a little cooler,
they might not burn others, but surely they will end up incinerating themselves.

Caigentan by Hong Zicheng
Translated by Robert Aitken with Daniel Kwok

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Vancouver, Canada -- If there's a silver lining to the 50-year exile of Buddhists who've fled Tibet to escape Chinese rule, it may be the greater role and much improved quality of life that is evolving for women who devote their lives to their faith.

Even in the free Tibet, life for nuns was difficult, said Rinchen Khando Choegal, the sister-in-law of the Dalai Lama who served for 10 years as education minister in the Tibetan exile government and now devotes herself to an educational initiative for nuns. Most had little or no education before they took their vows, she said, and few, if any, formal learning opportunities once they joined.
And it was much worse for the 2,000 or so religious women who in recent decades have fled Tibet to work and study at the Dalai Lama's new home in Dharamsala, India, or the handful of other South Asian communities where about 140,000 exiled Tibetans congregate.

"Many had been imprisoned, and tortured in prison," Choegal said. "Their health was very poor. They were living in fear."

So her Nun's Project, started 23 years ago but becoming a full-time endeavour for her only for the last five, began with health and security. It then progressed, with considerable success, into education.

Her Nun's Project today involves about 700 women, roughly a third of the Tibetan nuns in exile. Those who've joined recently must be at least 17 years old and they come with basic education, which is provided to almost all Tibetan exile children by the government in exile. But her initial participants were as young as 13, and most had no education at all.

Monday, November 08, 2010

A reader of this blog sent me this video link of which i am most pleased to share.

Since the invasion of Tibet over 50 years ago, China has systematically destroyed the Tibetan culture. One of the most profound losses is the tradition of the great master yogis. The entire system which supported these fascinating mind masters has been inexorably eliminated. In order to record these mystical practitioners for posterity, the filmmakers were given permission to film heretofore secret demonstrations and to conduct interviews on subject matter rarely discussed. This profound historical, spiritual and educational film will someday be the last remnant of these amazing practitioners.

Monday, October 25, 2010

By Rajah Kuruppu, Sunday Times, October 22, 2010
Colombo, Sri Lanka -- From the earliest of times, men have speculated on the question why we are born and why we die. In ancient times, phenomena such as rain and fire were attributed to gods associated with them.

There was a creator god responsible for birth and another for destruction. With the passage of time, there developed the concept of one God, all powerful and omnipotent, who is responsible for our birth and who would judge our life at death and reward or punish us for our good and harmful actions, respectively.

The answer in Buddhism for our birth is that we are caught in a cycle of births and deaths called Samsara, whose beginning is inconceivable. The Buddha declared that it is because of our delusion of the true nature of things, that we have the desire for life at the moment of death where ordinary people grasp for life. Consequently, we are re-born and continue our journey in Samsara with all its unsatisfactory features characterized by Anicca, Dukkha and Anatta — impermanance, unsatisfactoriness and absence of a permanent, unchanging, eternal, self or soul.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The notion of something with an inexhaustibly specifiable and unvarying mode of being can only be an approximation and abstraction from the infinite complexity of the changes taking place in the real process of becoming.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Gate, gate means gone, gone; paragate means gone over;
parasamgate means gone beyond (to the other shore of
suffering or the bondage of samsara); bodhi means the
Awakened Mind; svaha is the Sanskrit word for homage or
proclaimation. So, the mantra means "Homage to the Awakened
Mind which has gone over to the other shore (of suffering)."

Saturday, October 02, 2010

It is not appropriate to grieve in an hour of joy.. You all weep, but is there any real cause for grief? We should look upon a sage as a person escaped from a burning mansion... it does not matter whether I am here or not; salvation does not depend upon me but upon practising the Dharma, just as a cure depends not upon the doctor but upon taking the medicine... My time has come, my work is done... Everything eventually comes to an end, even if it should last for an aeon. The time of parting is bound to come one day. I have done what I could for myself and others, and to remain longer would be without purpose. I have trained all whom I could train. My teachings shall last for many generations, so do not be disturbed. Recognize that all that lives is subject to the laws of impermanence, and strive for eternal wisdom. When the light of knowledge dispels ignorance, when the world is seen as without substance, the end of life is seen as peace and as a cure to a disease. Everything that exists is bound to perish. Be therefore mindful of your salvation. The time of my passing has come.

At the time of death, it does not matter where one is a monk or lay person, rich or poor. What really counts is the state of one's mind. If at the time of one's death, one has managed to generate a state of mind possessed of clarity, control, love and wisdom, our life has been well spent. Should confusion, attachment, helplessness, fear, aversion and dark instincts predominate in our mindstream, this is a sign that our life was spent meaninglessly. Those who die in a state of spiritual backwardness and ignorance will fall into the lower realms of being, regardless of their social standing during their lifetime. When the mind has been dragged down with the weight of negative deeds and evil tendencies, one is swept helplessly away.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

This is how one who is skilled in goodness and wish to attain the state of peacefulness should act:

One should be able, upright, straight forward, free from pride, gentle in speech, mild, contented, easily satisfied, not caught up in too much bustle, frugal in one’s ways, with controlled senses, wise and skilful, not impudent, and with families is not demanding. One should also abstain from the ways that wise ones would blame.

And in this the thought and wishes that one should always hold: May all beings be happy and safe, may their hearts rejoice within themselves.

Whatever living beings there may be, whether they are strong or weak, without exception, be they of stature small or medium, firm or frail, short or long, living in hiding or open view, dwelling nearby or far away, already born or still future wombs; may all these beings rejoice within themselves.
Let no one bring about another’s ruin, nor despise any being in any way or place, let no one through anger or enmity wish harm on one another. Just as a mother at the risk of her life would love and protect her child, her only child; just so should one cultivate this boundless love, radiating loving-kindness to all that live in the whole universe, with a mind that is free from any bound, extending upward, downward and across the world, untroubled, free from hatred and enmity. Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down and still free from drowsiness, one should exercise this mindfulness. This is Divine Abiding here they say.

Not falling into wrong views, by following the precepts and with knowledge, one overcomes the craving after lust from all sense desires, and surely one will no more descend to any womb.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Each month, a digest of the latest research on mindfulness meditation lands in my inbox. The volume of studies has mushroomed in recent years – the most recent round-up (pdf) alone cites 35 new papers detailing effects on people with conditions such as heart disease and borderline personality disorder, the results of an innovative new mindfulness curriculum for schools, and the impact of mindfulness-based stress reduction courses on the structure of the brain (it seems to reduce density in the amygdala).

If practising mindfulness can help people – and it appears to – then all this evidence can only be a good thing. Whereas for years meditation's public image was stuck in the 1960s, tainted with hippie self-indulgence or new-age flakiness, now it's being taken seriously by everyone from top academics to US congressman and government departments.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Buffet : "... there's no need for education or explanation in order to approach, to appreciate, and to love paintings. You just need to look - and everyone will find what they're looking for, depending on their sensibility, curiosity and imagination. For me, these damned souls project a tragic solitude, a distress, a painful lucidity that strangely resembles the sterile confusion of life today. They reflect the same dread as The Horror of War, though more powerful, more clairvoyant: a vision of the icy world inevitably produced by egotism, greed and cowardice."

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

I used to be so fearless so limitless and free
Happy on my own and nothing really bothered me.
I had desires to see the world, jump out of planes and fly
And I love to be alive but I was not afraid to die

I used to be so sure of things and self-contained
I could carry on with no need to explain
It didn't matter if I ever made it home
Could go too fast, and drink all night and dance alone

I love to be alive but I was not afraid to die
I love to be alive but I was not afraid to die

I used to be so thoughtless, so easy and free
Could walk away, not think ahead, and had no plans to keep.
No hand to told, no one to bring down with me.
I wouldn't see the worst and it only hurts me.

I love to be alive but I was not afraid to die
I've got everything to lose
Since I've met you
I've got everything to lose
I've got everything to lose

Monday, August 23, 2010

English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache... Let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to the doctor and language at once runs dry.

Monday, August 16, 2010

To study Buddhism is to study yourself.
To study yourself is to forget yourself.
To forget yourself is to perceive your non-duality with all things.
To realize this is to cast off the mind and body of self and others.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

The discussions during Mind and Life XVIII primarily focus on the subjective phenomenology, information-processing operations, and neural mechanisms of attention, memory and conscious awareness from both scientific and Buddhist perspectives. The conference was held at His Holiness's residence in Dharamsala, India in 2009 and organized by the Mind and Life Institute. (more info at www.dalailama.com, www.mindandlife.org)

Monday, August 09, 2010

While many are seeking to climb the material ladder in life, others have reached the upper rungs and found out it's not all it's cracked up to be; choosing to set a different course - downshifting.

Even if you haven't reached (what is generally considered) the upper rungs to discover this, if you're struggling in this economic climate to keep up with all the "gotta haves" that perhaps you really don't need; step back, take a deep breath, separate from the pack and consider downshifting. The environment will certainly benefit from you doing so.

Downshifting, a term currently used most often in Australia and the UK, is the concept of living in voluntary simplicity; usually with environmental sustainability in mind although not necessarily the focus or primary motivator. People who take the downshifting route are also called "post materialists".

While some have been making these changes for years, it's only relatively recently that downshifting has acquired the label. An Australian Institute survey in 2004 found that nearly a quarter of Australian adults aged 30-59 have chosen to downshift over the previous 10 years.

People downshift their lives for mainly 5 reasons:

a) A desire for a more balanced life with less stressb) Clashes between personal values and those of the workplacec) Wanting a more fulfilling lifed) Ill healthe) Environmental concerns/rejection of consumerism

Saturday, July 31, 2010

The 'Inception' of Illusion or Reality?
by Shen Shi'an, The Buddhist Channel, Jul 30, 2010

Singapore -- The ingenious film that is ‘Inception’ begins with the assumption that it is possible for multiple persons to enter someone’s dream, that can even be designed without that person knowing, thus digging out deep secrets from his sub-consciousness, or even implanting ideas which eventually shape one’s decisions.

Thank goodness this doesn’t seem technologically viable at the moment… though it does seem possible in the near future? If so, may this movie be a cautionary tale for what may come to be! This is especially relevant in this information age, when the conceiving of the slightest ideas by the powerful can mushroom into world-changing actions.

In the story, dreams are elaborately crafted by architects who have an eye for detail and creativity – so as to trick the dreamer into believing the dream sequences to be real. This reminds me of the Buddha’s teaching in the Diamond Sutra, that all conditioned phenomena (including real life) is dream-like, due to their ethereal and transient nature.

Even more confounding yet rich than the Matrix movies, the dream hackers are able to delve deeper into the subject’s mind by conjuring a dream… within a dream… within a dream! With intriguing cross-interaction over layers of dreams, even the hackers are at times unsure of whether they are still in a dream, which, and whose!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

This lecture was given to the board members and volunteers of Buddhist Global Relief during a Board Retreat. It is an early attempt by Ven. Bodhi to develop a model for understanding and practicing Buddhism suitable for the post-modern stage of mind's evolution. The lecture was given on April 10th, 2010 at Bodhi Monastery in Lafayette, NJ

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Rodney Smith lives in Seattle, Washington, where he has been running a hospice. He has also set up hospices in Texas and Massachusetts, and teaches workshops nationwide on working with death and the dying. He has been offering vipassana retreats at IMS for many years, and has recently completed a book called Lessons from the Dying, to be published by Wisdom Publications.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Wisdom: From philosophy to neuroscience by Stephen Hall
examines ancient concepts of wisdom through the lens of modern brain science.
In a section called “Eight Neural Pillars of Wisdom,” Hall takes a fresh look at human qualities long associated with wisdom–including compassion, emotional regulation, the ability to discern what’s important, and the skill of coping with uncertainty–and suggests that modern neuroscience is providing radical new insights about how these timeless virtues evolved.

Based in part on a 2007 article in The New York Times Magazine, Wisdom is also a meditation on the seeds of wisdom, aspects of wisdom in everyday life, and the future of wisdom in our complex society.

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Speaking at the event, His Holiness said this spiritual gathering of Buddhist devotees - among them 400 Koreans, 300 Mongolians, 300 Chinese, and hundreds of Japanese - reflects the widespread propagation of Buddha’s teachings in Asia. He said he was optimistic about the prospects for a more peaceful and non-violent world as a small but significant group of people are now focussing their attention and energy on developing secular ethics of compassion, peace, love and kindness.

These secular ethics have the possibility of promoting a happy and healthy life for believers as well as non-believers. However, many see these secular ethics as religious and hence ignore them but His Holiness said compassion is biologically inherent in all living beings, animals as well as humans, in that everyone needs love and kindness for a happy, wholesome life. “There are many non-believers who are also great human beings,” he added.

Secularism, His Holiness said, is misunderstood by some religious practitioners as rejection of religion which is not true. In the current reality, secularism means respect not only for all religions but respect also for non-believers.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Craftspeople often grasp that the stages through which a work must pass to reach completion parallel the maturation of the human being and so shed light on our own needs and possibilities. It follows by analogy that to study a craft is to study one's own nature; hence the firm association between craft work and the search for self-knowledge. This is the faith underlying some craft traditions that preserve a key reflexive: not only "I work" but also "I work on myself."

Saturday, May 15, 2010

"But the explanation of how man should live a life of active social service in full harmony with himself as a member of the community of spirit, I found in the writings of those great medieval mystics [ Meister Eckhart and Jan van Ruysbroek ] for whom 'self-surrender' had been the way to self-realization, and who in 'singleness of mind' and 'inwardness' had found strength to say yes to every demand which the needs of their neighbours made them face, and to say yes also to every fate life had in store for them when they followed the call of duty as they understood it."

"The contrast between the nearly obsolete expression walk of life and the modern word career captures much of what needs to be said about the relation between the studio and the marketplace. Walk of life implies a deliberate pace, as if one takes time to enjoy and record the landscape through which one is passing. One can arrive anywhere by walking, although it takes more time than careening. One arrives later, one arrives mature.

Career, on the other hand, at least today implies a nervous, outwardly directed endeavour that tests one's powers but may also abuse them and leave little time for them to develop into deep coherence.

Walk of life can be, although often it is not, the inner aspect of career. Similarly, career can be the outer aspect of walk of life; it assures the worldly progress - the personal connections, material opportunities, and social acceptance - of a professional life. Today, and in any era that thrusts art into a competitive marketplace, the artist must find a delicate balance. There is nothing wrong with a career, but it is empty and sometimes corrupting if it lacks the contemplative pace of a walk of life."

Thursday, May 06, 2010

"The physical body depends on karma for its existence and has no nature of its own, just as a wave depends on karma for its existence and has no nature of its own. The sea is one, while waves are countless. Noble sons and daughters are also like this. There is only one sea of our buddha nature. But when people are confused, the sea of buddha nature becomes the sea of consciousness, and the sea of consciousness becomes the sea of passion, and the sea of passion becomes the sea of karma, and the sea of karma becomes the sea of suffering, and from the sea of suffering, they receive countless, limitless karmic bodies. Thus, on top of confusion, they pile up confusion without end and without limit. But all those illusions can't compare to the one reality, namely, the true form of all dharmas."

Saturday, May 01, 2010

Had to blog this beautiful picture by Denis Collette at flickr. If i may quote him:

Viva la revolution...!!!

In fact, Nietzsche was right: "Creating is the great way to put an end to the suffering… is what makes life lightly”. Everything that interests me in this approach is that deep joy ... this inner need that makes me feel so alive ... it added a little something to the extraordinary beauty of this so creative Nature... so why should I be concerned about the distribution, sales or thieves of these images ... is the wild flower worried about the distribution or sale of the image that has taken of her? So like the wild flower, my images, once created, are no more mine... they belong to the world.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

If we want to be free of the pain we inflict on ourselves and each other -- in other words, if we want to be happy -- then we have to learn to think for ourselves.

Although he was a prince born into a wealthy and powerful family, the young Siddhartha often just wanted to get away from it all. He wanted the space to think independently about who he was and what the spiritual path was about. Such freethinking was important to the Buddha's search for inner truth and his ultimate realization of enlightenment. These days more and more people in the West are following the teachings and example of the Buddha. But what are these teachings about? What is Buddhism? It looks like a religion, but is it?

Those teachings today still describe a deeply personal inner journey that's spiritual, yes, but not religious. The Buddha wasn't a god -- he wasn't even a Buddhist. You're not required to have more faith in the Buddha than you do in yourself. His power lies in his teachings, which show us how to work with our minds to realize our full capacity for wakefulness and happiness. These teachings can help us satisfy our search for the truth -- our need to know who and what we really are.

Where do we find this truth? Although we can rely to some degree on the wisdom we find in books and on the advice of respected spiritual authorities, that's only the beginning. The journey to genuine truth begins when you discover a true question -- one that comes from the heart -- from your own life and experience. That question will lead to an answer that will lead to another question, and so on. That's how it goes on the spiritual path.

We start by bringing an open, inquisitive, and skeptical mind to whatever we hear, read, or see that presents itself as the truth. We examine it with reason and we put it to the test in meditation and in our lives. As we gain insight into the workings of the mind, we learn how to recognize and deal with our day-to-day experiences of thoughts and emotions. We uncover inaccurate and unhelpful habits of thinking and begin to correct them. Eventually we're able to overcome the confusion that makes it so hard to see the mind's naturally brilliant awareness. In this sense, the Buddha's teachings are a method of investigation, or a science of mind.

Religion, on the other hand, often provides us with answers to life's big questions from the start. We don't have to think about it too much. We learn what to think and believe and our job is to live up to that, not to question it. If we relate to the Buddha's teachings as final answers that don't need to be examined, then we're practicing Buddhism as a religion.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Throughout its history, Buddhism has worked as a civilizing force. Its teachings on karma, for instance — the principle that all intentional actions have consequences — have taught morality and compassion to many societies. But on a deeper level, Buddhism has always straddled the line between civilization and wilderness. The Buddha himself gained Awakening in a forest, gave his first sermon in a forest, and passed away in a forest. The qualities of mind he needed in order to survive physically and mentally as he went, unarmed, into the wilds, were key to his discovery of the Dhamma. They included resilience, resolve, and alertness; self-honesty and circumspection; steadfastness in the face of loneliness; courage and ingenuity in the face of external dangers; compassion and respect for the other inhabitants of the forest. These qualities formed the "home culture" of the Dhamma.

"I know not, Ananda, even of a single form whereby pleasure and satisfaction in form does not pass into sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief, despair, since it is transient and changeable. This world, however, seeks pleasure, loves pleasure, prizes pleasure. Only a few beings are stirred by things that are truly stirring, in comparison with the greater number who remain unstirred by truly stirring things. And again, there are only a few who, being stirred, earnestly strive, in comparison with the greater number who, being stirred, yet do not earnestly strive."

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand,remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment.This means that the longest life and the shortest lifeamount to the same thing. For the passing minuteis every man's equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours.For the sole thing of which any man can be deprivedis the present; since this is all he owns.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

...clinging is suffering. It's because of clinging that physical pain becomes mental pain. It's because of clinging that aging, illness, and death cause mental distress. The paradox here is that, in clinging to things, we don't trap them or get them under our control. Instead, we trap ourselves.

Monday, March 15, 2010

The Master begins by revealing the boundless temporal and spatial dimensionsagainst which the quest for enlightenment unfolds. He then swiftly narrows downthe focus of his attention to the prospective student’s own situation in the here andnow. His concern is not with theory but with attitudes and actions. Repeatedly, hedrives home the point that our purpose in studying the Dharma should not be the mereacquiring of information, however interesting, but the transformation and purificationof our minds. Though he ultimately steers us towards the broad bodhisattvapath aimed at benefiting all sentient beings, he does not let us escape the “narrowpath” with its hard tasks of self-scrutiny, self-rectification, and self-cultivation.Alertness, heedfulness, conscientiousness, and integrity are the watchwords of thistraining. The path he guides us towards is never an easy one, but it is one thatbrings abundant rewards. It enables us to master the conditions of life instead ofdrifting along with them; it helps us ride over the high waves of good fortune withoutbeing dashed by the tidal waves of calamity. It teaches us how to dwell like amountain, ever tall, strong, and steady, unswayed even by the roughest winds.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

It's important to reflect on what true happiness is and where it can be found. A moment's reflection will show that you can't find it in the past or the future. The past is gone and your memory of it is undependable. The future is a blank uncertainty. So the only place we can really find happiness is in the present. But even here you have to know where to look. If you try to base your happiness on things that change — sights, sounds, sensations in general, people and things outside — you're setting yourself up for disappointment, like building your house on a cliff where there have been repeated landslides in the past. So true happiness has to be sought within. Meditation is thus like a treasure hunt: to find what has solid and unchanging worth in the mind, something that even death cannot touch.

"Writing itself, if not misunderstood and abused, becomes a way of empowering the writing self. It converts anger and disappointment into deliberate and durable aggression, the writer's main source of energy. It converts sorrow and self-pity into empathy, the writer's main means of relating to otherness. Similarly, his wounded innocence turns into irony, his silliness into wit, his guilt into judgment, his oddness into originality, his perverseness into his stinger."

I haven't ever really found a place that I call homeI never stick around quite long enough to make itI apologize once again I'm not in loveBut it's not as if I mindthat your heart ain't exactly breaking

It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buyWell I deserve nothing more than I getCos nothing I have is truly mine

I've always thoughtthat I would love to live by the seaTo travel the world aloneand live more simplyI have no idea what's happened to that dreamCos there's really nothing left here to stop me

It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buyWell I deserve nothing more than I getCos nothing I have is truly mine

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buyWell I deserve nothing more than I getCos nothing I have is truly mine

While my heart is a shield and I won't let it downWhile I am so afraid to fail so I won't even tryWell how can I say I'm alive

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buyWell I deserve nothing more than I getCos nothing I have is truly mine

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buyWell I deserve nothing more than I getCos nothing I have is truly mineCos nothing I have is truly mineCos nothing I have is truly mineCos nothing I have is truly mine

Friday, January 29, 2010

And yet, our collective fascination with his life rather than his writing suggests another bit of code, or at least a set of clues. Wasn't this, after all, what Salinger was rejecting, a culture of celebrity in which the most important thing was appearance and no one cared about the level of the soul?

"I just quit, that's all," Franny Glass tells her boyfriend early in "Franny and Zooey," explaining why she gave up acting. " . . . I don't know. It seemed like such poor taste, sort of, to want to act in the first place. I mean all the ego. And I used to hate myself so, when I was in a play, to be backstage after the play was over. All those egos running around feeling terribly charitable and warm."

For all that "The Catcher in the Rye" made him famous, "Franny and Zooey" is Salinger's masterpiece, an evocation of loss and longing within the bonds of family. Composed of two novellas, it introduces the youngest members of the Glass family, about whom Salinger would devote more than half of his published work.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Among my friends love is a great sorrow.It has become a daily burden, a feast,a gluttony for fools, a heart's famine.We visit one another asking, telling one another.We do not burn hotly, we question the fire.We do not fall forward with our aliveeager faces looking thru into the fire.We stare back into our faces.We have become our own realities.We seek to exhaust our lovelessness.

Among my friends love is a painful question.We seek out among the passing facesa sphinx-face who will ask its riddle.Among my friends love is an answer to a questionthat has not been asked.Then ask it.

Among my friends love is a payment.It is an old debt for a borrowing foolishly spent.And we go on, borrowing and borrowingfrom each other.Among my friends love is a wagethat one might have for an honest living.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Jhana is called the pleasure of renunciation,the pleasure of seclusion,the pleasure of peace,the pleasure of enlightenment.I say of this kind of pleasure that it should be pursued,that it should be developed,that it should be cultivated,that it should not be feared.

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"And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far into the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
Rainer Maria Rilke
"The unsurpassed, profound and wonderful Dharma is difficult to encounter in hundreds of millions of eons. I now see it and hear it, receive and uphold it, and I vow to fathom the Tathagata's true meaning."